In some red NC districts, Democratic candidates feel this might be their year | Opinion

The North Carolina Democratic Party is taking on Republicans this year with Churchillian vigor, vowing to fight everywhere.

The party announced it will field candidates in all 14 congressional districts and all 170 state legislative districts, although two of the 120 state House candidates are expected to be unaffiliated candidates who lean Democratic, WUNC News reported.

The Republican Party, meanwhile, is leaving Democratic incumbents unchallenged in 19 left-leaning legislative districts.

Given how severely Republican state lawmakers have gerrymandered legislative and congressional districts, sending out a full field of Democratic candidates would usually mean sending many of them to almost certain defeat.

But this year, the Democratic longs hots may not be so long. President Donald Trump, who carried North Carolina three times, is not on the midterm ballot. And — to the extent that the midterms are traditionally a referendum on who is in the White House — the Republican president’s low approval rating in North Carolina will weigh against his party’s candidates.

In the 8th Congressional District east of Charlotte, Jesse Oppenheim, general counsel for a Charlotte-based software company, is in a three-way Democratic primary for the right to challenge the incumbent Republican, Mark Harris. Others on the Democratic primary ballot are Colby Watson, a small-business owner, and Kevin Clark, a U.S. Army veteran and community activist.

Oppenheim, 40, is a former president of the Young Democrats of Charlotte. He knows a Democrat faces long odds in a district that the Cook Political Report rates as solidly Republican, but he thinks it’s bad democracy when incumbents go unchallenged.

“Even if someone is running in a hard district, it’s important that every representative answer for how they voted in D.C.,” he said.

Oppenheim campaigns in a T-shirt that is inscribed with “Hi, I’m Jesse” and he easily strikes up conversations, many of them with Republicans.

“Talking with Republicans teaches me things. It sharpens my arguments,” he said. “If I’m going to be an effective representative, I have to listen. I have to represent people who disagree with me also.”

When Oppenheim is asked how he expects to attract Republican voters, he has a ready line, “Well, I got one to marry me.”

In North Carolina House District 117, in Henderson County just south of Asheville, Democrat Lynne Russo thinks frustration over delays in federal Hurricane Helene relief funding will give her a chance in a heavily Republican district. She calls it “the Washington, D.C., trickle-down effect.”

“Helene might have been the great equalizer here because people in western North Carolina don’t feel heard,” Russo said.

She hopes to win over unaffiliated voters. “There’s more independent voters there than there are Republicans,” she said. “There’s really more blue folks here than you might think.”

Russo, 54, is a communications consultant who is building her campaign around small group “coffee talks.” It’s her first run for office, and she’s undeterred by how the district and the region favor Republicans.

“It is a lot to overcome, and I understand that, but people are frustrated,” she said. “Honestly, just being able to hear their frustration and be there for that feels like important work to me.”

Democrat Christopher Schulte is seeking a rematch against Phil Shepard, the eight-term Republican incumbent. In 2024, Schulte lost to Shepard by a margin of 63% to 31%.

The Onslow County district just north of Jacksonville has a large population of military veterans and a record of voting solidly Republican. But Schulte, a 43-year-old psychology professor at Coastal Carolina Community College, thinks it’s important to give voters a choice.

A former head of the Onslow County Democratic Party, Schulte said many people in the county “talk about a lot of things that Democrats would deliver on, but they just can’t vote for us. We still haven’t figured out what that messaging gap is.”

Despite the frustration of being a blue candidate in a red district, Schulte thinks the broad effort may eventually break through.

“I know a lot of folks that run in these races, like myself, we can’t get down on ourselves, like, ‘Man, we’re just not going to win. It doesn’t matter what messaging we have. It doesn’t matter how hard we work, we’re not winning,’ ” he said. “But I think we’re building something. I think people are starting to hear the message. We’ll get there.”

Associate opinion editor Ned Barnett can be reached at 919-404-7583, or nbarnett@newsobserver.com

This story was originally published January 21, 2026 at 11:38 AM with the headline "In some red NC districts, Democratic candidates feel this might be their year | Opinion."